This mask has become a worldwide symbol of anti-capitalist protest. Its copyright is held by the Time Warner Corporation. It is made in CHINA.

This is V’s mask. V is the fictional revolutionary anarchist in V for Vendetta, a 2006 film based on comic books by British writer Alan Moore. In 2008, hackers belonging to the group Anonymous wore the mask in public to conceal their identities offline, and in 2011, it suddenly became the predominant symbol of the global Occupy protests – a unifying face for a movement without leaders or heroes. More than 100,000 of the US$10 masks were sold in 2011, and for each one sold, royalties were sent to the makers of the movie, Time Warner. This is V’s mask, but it is owned by the world’s largest media conglomerate.

The demands of the 2011 Occupy protests varied: in New York, protestors demanded that bankers take responsibility for the financial crisis, while demonstrations in Moscow focused on allegations of electoral fraud. But each confronted social and economic inequality, and the Occupy slogan resonates everywhere – “We are the 99 percent” was originally directed at the richest one-percent of US citizens, who own almost 40 percent of the country’s wealth. Globally, the wealthiest 20 percent of mankind controls 83 percent of the world’s wealth, compared to the poorest 20 percent, who share one percent of it between them.